We admit that each of us has our own special eating habits, which seem at least strange to others. However, when it is discovered that lovers of, for example, bananas with mayonnaise have their own Facebook group with a significant number of members, the thought comes to mind: "Maybe there is something in this?" We've put together the most unexpected food combinations here that can nevertheless turn out to be pretty darn delicious. Let's take a chance and try?

1. Meat + chocolate

Complete madness. But not for the Mexicans, because this is their a traditional dish for several centuries. "Mole" is a mixture of several types of meat baked in a pot along with chocolate, peanuts, sesame seeds and various spices. Chocolate enriches meat sauce making it deeply dark and velvety. To completely drive the future eater crazy, local chefs also add garlic to the dish.

Source: fromcreativetraveltomexico.wordpress.com

2. Black caviar + white chocolate

Shocking couple? It has been scientifically proven that such an alliance has every chance of success. Both products contain high levels of amino acids, and it is they that "make" the taste of foods such as meats and cheeses.

Source: kitchenbutterfly.com

3. Strawberry + balsamic vinegar

Vinegar instead of cream? The combination of sour and sweet, firstly, has already been used many times in cooking. Secondly, it is much healthier than pouring cream or chocolate sauce over strawberries.

Source: gourmetblends.wordpress.com

4. Watermelon + smoked eel

Another seemingly revolutionary combination that actually turns into gourmet food. The smoky oiliness of the eel fits exactly into the juicy pulp of the watermelon ...

Source: Alison Parks

5. French fries + milkshake

11,890 Facebook friends! Combining salty and sweet is a completely predictable step for fast food fans. Beware side effects- bloating and other troubles.

Source: frenchfrydiary.blogspot.com

6. Fruit salad + chili powder

Ready for fireworks for your taste buds? But this dish is an ordinary Mexican street food. The capsaicin in chili awakens the sense of smell and enhances the sweetness of the fruit. Mangoes and pineapples go especially well with chili.

Source: globetrottergirls.com

7. Bananas + mayonnaise

Facebook group has 542 fans who share with each other various recipes banana mayonnaise sandwiches. Mainly varieties of mayonnaise vary.

Source: nihongogo.com

8. Eggplant + honey

Quite simple, tasty and healthy dish... We will even give his recipe here. Peel the eggplant and cut into thin slices. Place in a container, cover with milk, close the lid tightly and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

In a bowl, mix a little flour with a teaspoon of salt, dip the eggplant in this mixture, shake off the excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and fry the eggplants for 2 minutes on each side. Place on a paper towel lined plate to remove excess oil. Sprinkle with sea salt. Drizzle with honey and garnish with thyme leaves.

A delicious dessert is a great way to end your meal. In order to diversify her sweet menu, every woman is tirelessly looking for new recipes. However, most flavor combinations such as nut and chocolate, strawberry and banana, vanilla and egg dough do not make much of an impression anymore. Therefore, it is worth focusing on the use of new combinations.

Now famous confectioners around the world are engaged in this search, now and then presenting unusual dishes to their customers. Cauliflower ice cream, carrot cake, pumpkin souffle and others unusual desserts soon become famous, and even traditional treats.

Unusual flavor combinations

We have selected some examples of interesting combinations that you can use in your daily menu:

• Chocolate and beets
• Avocado and chocolate
• Lemon and cinnamon
• Coffee and carrots

To an inexperienced person, they may seem overly daring, but having tried something unusual just once, you will not be able to stop and, perhaps, even go towards other culinary experiments.

Chocolate and beets

This combination first saw the light of day in the idea of ​​one American pastry chef, who proposed in this way to introduce a root vegetable into the diet of children. The combination of chocolate and beets can be used to make cakes and muffins.

When baked, beets set off chocolate and give the dessert a very mild taste and delicate texture. In addition, such a dessert is very healthy. Let your kids try it without calling secret ingredient, show how delicious vegetables can be.

Also, with the help of cinnamon, almonds or nutmeg, you can add some spicy notes to the dish that will surprise not only little gourmets.

Avocado and chocolate

An unexpected exotic combination - avocado and chocolate. A striking example of it can be gourmet dessert from avocado puree and chocolate ice cream. Using confectionery flavors can make the workpiece even more interesting. So, the aromas of vanilla, strawberry, banana go well with chocolate, and black currant, apple or lemon will add a touch of freshness to the dessert.

Avocado pulp with lemon juice and sugar syrup simply grind in a blender, and then send to the refrigerator. Don't forget to add a pinch of salt and your chosen flavor.

You can make your own chocolate ice cream or buy a quality product from the store. When serving, 2-3 tablespoons of avocado mass and a scoop of ice cream are placed in a bowl for desserts. Enjoy!

Lemon and cinnamon

Lemon with its freshness and spicy cinnamon go well together. With these ingredients, you can make a fairly easy dessert - lemon pie... It will be a great solution for a summer menu.

When preparing it, you can use a variety of colors to match the appearance of the dish with its rich taste. In this case, yellow and green shades are suitable for the cream, and chocolate for the base. You can add a little more brightness by decorating ready dessert raspberries.

On our website you will also find original solutions for Easter. In this article, you can learn how to choose dyes for Easter eggs.

Coffee and carrots

This flavor combination can be called explosive and daring, but it has already been tried in many famous restaurants in the world. One of the dessert options can be, for example, like this.

Carrots need to be peeled from the top layer and cooked with any in a convenient way: boil, bake, process in a double boiler. Mix coffee with coconut flakes, and roll the carrots in this mixture, and when serving, decorate the plate with orange slices. The dessert is ready, and its lightness will appeal to all adherents of a healthy diet.

All presented combinations seem unusual and even specific at first glance, but they are really good. They can be adapted to different dishes creating your own recipes. The use of food flavors and colorings will make each solution brighter, more attractive and unusual. Experimenting with different combinations of flavors and shades, you can transform even the most common desserts.

Why do certain ingredients in cooking taste so well together? If you browse the Treatology pages, browse the Wilton Test Kitchen recipes, you will discover unforgettable combinations of flavors and aromas that you may not have come across. Many of you may be wondering why these components and textures give such great results with each other. It's all about the intricacies of the science of combining tastes!
The flavoring bouquet is made up of several taste criteria - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and "umami", that is. a flavor enhancer for MSG, plus the flavor and individual physical sensation in the mouth produced by the particular food. One of the most important aspects in achieving excellent taste is the balance between these five taste criteria. Ingredients with the same flavor complement each other, but a truly interesting flavor bouquet comes from combining opposing flavors.

Listed below are the different flavors that work great with each other:

• The sweet taste (in small quantities) creates an excellent contrast to the salty and sour taste and determines the balance of savory dishes.


• The sour taste goes well with the sweet one.


• The salty taste enhances the sweet, softens the bitter and emphasizes the taste of the flavor enhancer.


• The bitter taste balances sweet and sour tastes.


• The flavor enhancer adds piquancy, improves the olfactory and visual perception of the dish, and helps balance other flavors.

The initial perception of food is created by the texture of food influences, the ways in which the tastes are combined in the mouth, and the perception on your tongue. Add flavor and you have a taste!

For example, let's take a look at one of my favorite recipes on Treatology, Brownie Bourbon Turtles (Recipe). Taking a bite of this dessert turns out that each bite includes a pleasantly viscous brownie mass, topped with creamy Bourbon caramel, whipped bourbon caramel topping, and finally toasted pecans.
From the point of view of taste sensations, this dessert has many sweet ingredients that go well with each other. This amount of sweetness is slightly softened by the bitterness of the chocolate and pecans. And when all this bouquet of flavors, combining together in the form of contrasting textures, meets the strong aroma of Bourbon caramel and chocolate, an incredible aroma and taste is created.
So, I suggest you have some fun testing out the recipes from the site, but don't stop there. I encourage you to experiment and create your own flavor bouquet - the possibilities are endless here!

What is taste and flavor?
The terms "taste" and "flavoring bouquet" are synonymous and interchangeable for most people, but do you know the difference between them? Let's try to figure it out.

Taste
The taste of a food is made up of a combination of sweet, salty, bitter, sour and flavor enhancer - which is perceived by the taste buds in the mouth. And the balance of these five flavors creates truly amazing dishes.

Sweetness It is usually added to a dish through sugar, but sweet notes can also be accentuated with the help of natural sugars from various foods, such as fruits. Sweetness is very dominant in dessert dishes, but also creates a huge contrast between salty and sour. In small amounts, sweet additions also perfectly balance the pungency and piquancy in dishes.

Acid can be added through various acidic ingredients such as vinegars and citrus fruit... While acid is commonly added to savory foods, it is also great for sweet foods.

Salt in truth, it is considered by chefs to be the most important ingredient in food. Salt improves the flavor profile, enhances sweetness and suppresses bitterness. Salt is used in most recipes and is very often added to sweet dishes as well.

Bitterness may be present in a variety of ingredients including chocolate, coffee, and beer. When not in balance, bitterness can aggressively overlap other flavors, but in very small amounts it can make a dish richer and deeper in taste.

Flavor enhancer (Umami) also known as "5th taste", is used primarily in spicy and salty dishes, to create and develop a flavoring bouquet in the mouth, when eating food. These are mainly monosodium glutamate and ribotides *. The flavor enhancer can be felt when we eat meat, fish, cheeses (such as parmesan or blue cheese), some vegetables (mushrooms and asparagus). Flavor enhancers are usually subtle, but vital to balancing out outstanding dishes.

* Ribotid - food supplement designed to increase the taste sensation. It is a white crystalline powder, readily soluble in water. By acting on certain receptors, it enhances natural taste properties products weakened during processing and storage. Moreover, it masks some unpleasant components of taste and smell..

Flavoring bouquet
The flavoring bouquet of food is made up of a combination of the five flavors described above, plus the aroma and initial perception of the food in the mouth. Aroma is, in other words, the smell of food. Ingredients with high volatile content, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as herbs, are often added in cooking to enhance the overall flavor. The initial perception of food in the mouth depends on the sensitivity of the individual sensations that a person experiences when food enters the mouth.

About the author.
Laura is a Nutrition Scientist and Director of the Food Department at the WILTON team. At the company, she constantly creates new products that allow decorators to make their sweetest dreams come true. Wilton believes that Laura has excellent taste, and her functional inventions will always get a response from buyers. Prior to joining Wilton, Laura was Director of Engineering for a dairy company. At a time when Laura is not mixing some new sweet formula to create another miracle for decorators, she loves to meet and communicate with her family and friends.

Translation from the site

Each of us has our favorite food combinations, many of which are generally accepted as, for example, tomato sauce with pasta, cottage cheese with fruit or tea with cookies. And few people would like to change their habits or try new combinations of products, especially if they seem unusual and highly questionable. But trust me, these food combinations will definitely delight your taste buds and are well worth trying!

Meat + berry jam

Many people still have no idea how to eat meat with berries. Meanwhile, in many countries of the world, this combination is considered a classic. Try to serve lingonberry or cranberry jam with a steak or baked pork - we are sure you will remember this taste for a long time.

Eggplant + honey

Eggplant with honey is something new! But in sunny Andalusia, this combination is considered almost classic. Just fry the eggplants in the usual way and pour them with honey - you will lick your fingers!

Strawberry + cucumber

The strawberry season is just around the corner. So, it's time to try something new. How about an unusual but very original combination - strawberry and cucumber? They can be used to make sweet toast, refreshing flavored water, or very delicious salad according to our recipe.

Melon + ham

It would seem that these products are absolutely not compatible with each other. Meanwhile, ham with melon is a traditional Italian summer dish served both at formal receptions and at home dinners. Try it, it's delicious.

Pineapple + blue cheese

Pineapple and cheese actually contain many similar substances. Their combination allows them to interact, enriching the taste. The best pairing is blue cheese, the sourness of which is balanced by the sweetness of the fruit.

Strawberry + Parmesan

Strawberries sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese have replaced chocolate-covered strawberries. The butyric acid in this cheese, which is also found in chocolate, reacts with the flavonoids in the strawberries to create a rich, sweet taste.

Dark chocolate + beets

The substances geozyme and pyrazine give a special taste to beets. The latter is also found in dark chocolate, and when you combine it with beets, you get interesting combination sweets and bitterness. Try to sprinkle beet salad grated dark chocolate.

Chocolate + soy sauce

The perfect combination from a chemical point of view. The salinity of the soy sauce emphasizes the sweetness of the chocolate. In addition, both products contain fried, vegetable and fruit components, mutually enriching each other's flavors. Try to dip chocolate bar in soy sauce or drizzle over chocolate dessert.

Pickled cucumber + ice cream

Pregnant women intuitively sense that this combination can trigger a reward response in the brain. Here's why: The salt in pickled cucumber is essential for normal blood circulation and cellular metabolism, while the sugar and fat in ice cream provide energy through fast carbohydrates. Your body needs all of this to survive. Therefore, the brain encourages the use of such combinations, even if they seem inappropriate.

Black caviar + white chocolate

The famous British chef Heston Blumenthal understood that a touch of salty on white chocolate would enrich his taste and soften the sweetness. He experimented with combinations and experimentally discovered that it was best to put black caviar on a white chocolate bar.

Meat + chocolate

Complete madness. But not for Mexicans, because this is their traditional dish for several centuries. "Mole" is a mixture of several types of meat baked in a pot along with chocolate, peanuts, sesame seeds and various spices. Chocolate enriches the meat sauce, making it deeply dark and velvety. To completely drive the future eater crazy, local chefs also add garlic to the dish.

Fruit salad + chili powder

Ready for fireworks for your taste buds? But this dish is an ordinary Mexican street food. The capsaicin in chili awakens the sense of smell and enhances the sweetness of the fruit. Mangoes and pineapples go especially well with chili.

Nutella + French fries

Salt enhances the taste, even if it is sweet. Try Nutella's nutty chocolate mass with French fries. As mentioned above, potatoes have a mild flavor, so in this case they only act as a container for salt. You can also replace Nutella with a chocolate milkshake. However, beware of side effects - bloating and other troubles.

Strawberry + balsamic vinegar

Vinegar instead of cream? The combination of sour and sweet, firstly, has already been used many times in cooking. Secondly, it is much healthier than pouring cream or chocolate sauce over strawberries.

Ketchup + dark chocolate

You probably sprinkle ketchup on a lot of other foods, but you’ve hardly ever tried it with dark chocolate. However, the latter has a tomato flavor, and ketchup enhances them by enriching the flavor. They both also have hints of parsley, thanks to the linalool molecule.

Source , ,

Each of us has our own eating habits. Someone loves sweet, someone salty, some people cannot do without meat, and the diet of some mainly consists of dairy products. In any case, for the most part, all these dishes are pretty standard, both in appearance and in the combination of some ingredients with others. However, there are those in which, it would seem, the components do not fit at all and you involuntarily wonder how you can eat it? It turns out you can and, moreover, it's even delicious.

So, THE MOST UNUSUAL COMBINATIONS IN FOOD that we didn’t even know about:

1. MEAT AND CHOCOLATE

An unusual duet. But this is a common Mexican dish.
"Mole"- meat with a sauce of chocolate, peanuts, sesame seeds and a variety of spices. Chocolate enriches the meat sauce, making it even darker and velvety. It's hard to imagine, but it turns out very tasty.

2. FRUIT SALAD AND CHILI PEPPER

Combination fruit salad and super hot pepper chili seems like complete madness, but this common dish for Mexicans. The pungency of the pepper enhances the sense of smell and the sweetness of the fruit. Pineapples are ideal for chili.

3. EGGPLANTS AND HONEY

Very simple and unusual dish, and recipes on the Internet can be found in the form of a variety of additional ingredients and cooking methods. The main highlight here is the addition of honey. Cooking is easy, fast and the taste is excellent.

4. CAVIAR AND WHITE CHOCOLATE

The fact that sweet is often combined with salty is not news. After all, salt is able to reveal the fullness of the taste of a sweet dish. Of course, if you add it in moderation. Based on this, British chef Heston Blumenthal decided to experiment and came up with original dish where two completely incompatible ingredients - black caviar and White chocolate... A hint of salty on white chocolate is not only aesthetically pleasing, but, as it turned out, is very unusual and tasty. The chef also decided that red caviar on white chocolate was no less a winning option.

5. FRENCH FRIES AND CHOCOLATE PASTA

Salt in this case acts as a flavor enhancer. It will be even sweeter. And the mild taste of potatoes itself will only emphasize this. You can also replace Nutella (or another chocolate paste) with a milkshake.
The combination is unusual, but one has only to remember going to fast food. Moreover, many take milk shake precisely as a sauce for potatoes. Strange but delicious. However, do not get carried away with such experiments. This is not a very familiar combination of foods for our body. Although delicious.

6. MELON AND HAM

Seemingly completely incompatible products. By the way, melon with ham is a traditional an italian dish, which is served both in restaurants and is prepared at home.

7. STRAWBERRY AND PARMESAN

These 2 ingredients go well with each other in a salad. The interaction gives the dish a rich, sweetish-sourish taste. Add arugula and watering olive oil turns out very delicious lung dish.

8. DARK CHOCOLATE AND BEET

Unexpected but perfect combination sweets and bitterness. Sprinkle the beetroot salad with grated chocolate. Experiment, it is not difficult to prepare such a dish, but you will try something new and unusual.

9. PINEAPPLE AND BLUE MOLD CHEESE

The combination of these products allows you to enrich the taste of the resulting dish. The sourness of the blue cheese harmonizes wonderfully with the sweet fruit.

10. CHOCOLATE AND SOY SAUCE

And again, a combination of salty and sweet. Salty soy sauce enhances the sweetness of the chocolate. The ingredients in both of these products enrich each other's flavors. You can pour the chocolate soy sauce or drizzle it over a chocolate dessert.